One quarter into FY27, the pattern across the businesses we work with is consistent enough to be worth sharing — not as a sales pitch, but as a genuine read on what offshore staffing looks like in practice a full quarter in. This builds on what we reported one month in and two months in: the direction hasn’t changed, it’s compounded.
This quarter also marks the first time real estate joins the report alongside our four longest-running verticals — a reflection of where client demand has actually moved this quarter, not a change in what GSN considers core.
Construction: the estimating gap is closing, and the compliance question is opening
Builders who placed offshore estimating support in Q1 are past the initial learning curve — bid volume is up, or bid volume is flat with materially less senior time consumed per bid. What’s newly visible this quarter is the broader engineering skills shortage starting to bite beyond estimating specifically, with electrical and other engineering disciplines now showing up in the same conversations that used to be estimating-only.
Insurance: claims functions are cleaner, and US interest has grown
Australian insurance clients running offshore claims and policy administration support continue to report cleaner compliance documentation and faster turnaround. This quarter also brought a noticeable uptick in enquiries from US insurance operations specifically — a market GSN has historically served less than Australia, and one where claims adjudication outsourcing is a genuinely active trend right now.
Legal: the partner-time recovery continues, and Philippines-specific interest is rising
Law firms with embedded offshore legal support continue to report partner time shifting away from administrative and research tasks. What’s new this quarter is how many of those conversations — particularly from US firms — are now Philippines-specific from the outset, rather than starting as a generic ‘should we outsource legal work at all’ conversation.
Accounting: the function with the clearest structural case
Accounting remains the vertical with the most consistent onboarding outcomes — bank reconciliations running without chasing, payables on schedule, and management reports arriving on time. Payday Super’s 1 July 2026 start added real complexity to payroll specifically this quarter, and the businesses that had already placed a dedicated payroll professional handled the transition with noticeably less disruption than those still running payroll as a shared task.
Real estate: the newest vertical, and an early but clear pattern
Real estate agencies exploring offshore property management support this quarter are following the same early pattern every other vertical has shown: the admin-heavy, non-licensed work is what moves offshore cleanly, and the agencies investing in proper platform training upfront are seeing faster stabilisation than those treating it as a plug-and-play hire.
The thread across all five verticals
Different industries, different functions, different professional disciplines — but the same through-line that’s held for three straight quarters now. Offshore staffing works when it’s treated as a structural decision, not a cost decision. When onboarding is built deliberately. When the offshore professional is embedded rather than kept at a transactional distance.
The businesses that treated it this way are, one quarter into FY27, operating with meaningfully more capacity than they had in June. That gap compounds over the rest of the financial year — not because offshore staffing is a magic fix, but because that’s how compounding operational capacity actually works when the model is used properly.
GSN works across construction, insurance, legal, accounting, and real estate. See how we approach placement across all five disciplines.
FAQS
What’s new in GSN’s Q1 FY27 report compared to the July and August updates?
Real estate joins the report for the first time this quarter, and new sub-trends have emerged within existing verticals — including growing US interest in insurance and legal outsourcing, and the impact of Payday Super on accounting clients.
Why is real estate being added to GSN’s core vertical reporting now?
Client demand and enquiry volume shifted into that vertical this quarter — the addition reflects where the business has genuinely moved, not a change in strategic focus.
How did Payday Super affect GSN’s accounting clients this quarter?
Businesses that had already placed a dedicated offshore payroll professional handled the 1 July 2026 transition with noticeably less disruption than those still running payroll as a shared, generalist task.
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